Police Lounged, Made Popcorn As Looters Hit Nearby Stores

CHICAGO — Outraged by video of police officers having a "hangout" session in U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush's campaign office while ignoring looting at nearby stores, Mayor Lori Lightfoot called for a new state law to require licenses for police officers.

On June 1, after looters damaged Rush's campaign office in a shopping center at 54th and Wentworth, video surveillance captured 13 officers, including three supervisors, lounging around inside as looters hit businesses in the area.

Images captured from the video show officers snacking on popcorn and napping on the congressman's couch. Lightfoot said the officers hung out inside Rush's office for "four or five hours."

"They even had the unmitigated gall to go and make coffee for themselves ... and to pop popcorn, my popcorn, in my microwave, while looters were tearing apart businesses within their sight and within their reach," said Rush, who showed the mayor the video Wednesday.

The mayor called the officers' actions a "deplorable lack of responsibility to do their job at a time when the city and their fellow officers needed them most."

"These individuals did, indeed, abandon their responsibilities and their obligation and their oath to serve and protect," Lightfoot said. "We should all be disgusted, and we should all feel hurt and betrayed in this moment, of all moments."

Investigators have tentatively identified some of the officers caught on camera that Lightfoot said "demonstrated a total disregard for their colleagues, for the badge" and promised to hold them accountable. During the news conference, the mayor referred to an image of the officers sitting together at desks in the campaign office.

"You know who you are. You know what you did. Don't make us come find you. Come in, identify yourselves," she said. "But we will find you." Lightfoot said it seemed to her that the officers felt they were "untouchable" because they were joined in the office by "bosses, the white shirts"

"Not one of these officers will be allowed to hide behind the badge and go on and act like nothing ever happened," the mayor said. "Not anymore. Not in my city. Not in your city."

Police Superintendent David Brown called the incident at Rush's office a reflection of poor leadership in the department. He said that also included the recent string of videotaped acts of alleged misconduct including officers flipping off protesters, using homophobic slurs, hiding their uniform name tags and badges while on duty and using excessive force .

Brown told reporters about his response to officers who recently complained that his recent decision to strip police powers from officers engaged in misconduct was too harsh.

"Move or get out of the way, but we are going to uphold the nobility of this profession. We will be accountable to the Chicagoans that deserve a department they can be proud of," Brown said. "Let's now be the good cops that hold the bad cops accountable by rooting them out of this profession. Period. No question mark. No gray area. ... If you sleep during a riot, what are you doing during a regular shift when there's no riot? And what makes you comfortable enough that supervisors won't hold you accountable. Step up or step out. I'm not playing."

Lightfoot got emotional talking of her frustration over so many alleged acts of police misconduct that have been reported recently as protests over the death of George Floyd, which occurred after a Minneapolis police officer held a knee to his neck for nearly 9 minutes, erupted into widespread looting and vandalism.

"I do have a range of emotions as I stand here. Mostly, I'm done," she said. "We cannot go on like this anymore."

The mayor said she will fully implement the recommendations of the Police Accountability Task Force, which she led, that have languished since their release four years ago. Lightfoot also took aim at the city's contract with its police union, the Fraternal Order of Police, or FOP, which she said has held back reform needed to make the police department accountable to Chicagoans.

"There will be reckoning for the FOP, and I think that moment is now," Lightfoot said.

The mayor said she has directed the city law department to draft legislation requiring police officers to be licensed by the state and that she plans to forward to the state Legislature. She said she expected opposition to certification requirements from unions representing police.

"It's way past [the] time for this change in our state," she said. "And licensing is just one of several new measures that we must institute to make individual officers and departments far more accountable to the people."